At BJ-Gear, we take our responsibility for the environment and the well-being of our employees seriously. Therefore, we have defined some focused objectives in three crucial areas: We will reduce our annual energy consumption, we will protect the environment and our employees when we use chemicals, and we will expand our waste sorting continuously.
We decrease our power consumption and increase our ambitions
Already when constructing BJ-Gear’s facilities, the intention not to affect the environment in a negative way was important to us. The energy consumption is kept down by means of effective insulation, intelligent central control of the temperature and recycling of the heat from machines and other production equipment via the comfort and process extraction. The extraction units have an efficiency of approximately 85%.
Furthermore, the power consumption is controlled by an Intelligent House Control (IHC), which ensures that the consumption of power can be adjusted to our needs in the best way possible. These efforts keep our emission of CO2 through the consumption of energy and electricity down to a minimum.
All extraction units connected to the machines, where cooling lubricant is used, are supplied with oil mist filters with a degree of purification of 99.8%. Thereby, our effective filtration system ensures, that hazardous substances are not emitted into the atmosphere.
As a specific action to reduce our annual energy consumption, we have replaced all our light fixtures with LED, wherever practicable. This results in a saving of energy of 65% compared to our previous use of energy-saving lights and fluorescent lamps.
A healthy and appropriate chemicals policy
We wish to take care of our employees and provide the best possible working conditions for them. In line with the ISO 14001 standard’s principle of continual improvement, we work to reduce the number of chemicals we use. We constantly seek alternatives and the gentlest chemicals possible, both when it comes to cleaning and manufacturing of products.
To avoid the risk of chemical pollution, there is no drainage in the factory building. This eliminates the risk of a potential contamination of the wastewater caused by leaked oil or chemicals.
Optimisation of the waste sorting
In order to comply with the requirements of the ISO 14001 standard, we have mapped out our waste sorting, and work purposefully to expand our sorting over time. At the moment, we sort 27 different types of waste including paper, oil waste, electronic waste, chemical waste, solid scrap metal and metal shavings. The goal is to expand the waste sorting with a new type of waste every year.
We take special care to handle and dispose of hazardous waste in a responsible way. Therefore, we have implemented a well described procedure for waste sorting and we have installed separate waste containers for chemical waste, spray cans, batteries and fluorescent tubes to ensure proper disposal.
Recycling of production materials
Metal waste from the production of our gearboxes and associated products are sorted into cast iron/steel, stainless steel, aluminum, bronze, aluminum bronze and mixed metal waste. This applies to solid metal scraps as well as metal shavings from turning and milling processes. Both are remelted to be reused as new raw materials.
We focus on recycling in all manufacturing processes. For instance, we drain cutting oil from metal shavings, to reuse the cutting oil in the following cutting process. In the same way, cooling lubricant used in turning and milling processes is recycled via our central system for cooling lubricant. The cooling lubricant is filtered and cooled before it is returned to the machines. As a bonus, the warm air from the cooling process is used to heat the building.
1. All extraction units on the machines are equipped with oil mist filters to ensure a healthy indoor climate
2. The view from our facilities to a beautiful lake, trees and fields
3. Sorting of solid scrap metal
4. Bronze shavings from the machining process